The Evolution Of Russia's Nouveau Riche

MOSCOW — Now that Moscow is full of billionaires, attitudes are changing

The billboard appears at mile 3 of the boulevard of big-ticket dreams that is the Rublyovka Highway. "Any house," the builder's sign proclaims. "Helicopter as a bonus."

Only in Rublyovka are houses so pricey that a helicopter is thrown in like a carpet upgrade.

How elite is Rublyovka? Prices have streaked skyward even on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, the "Rublyovka adjacent" avenue in northwest Moscow -- presumably because people who drive along it are on their way to Rublyovka.

The Rublyovka Highway shuts down twice daily as President Vladimir Putin is chauffeured between work and his Rublyovka estate, prompting an elite traffic jam locals love to fume about.

Russians throughout history have lived large, from the gilded palaces and Faberge eggs of the czars to the epic miseries of World War II. Today's prosperity is no exception. Fourteen years after the arrival of capitalism, Forbes magazine's annual survey of the wealthy last year found Moscow with more billionaires than any other city. This year's survey shows the city dipping slightly below New York, thanks to the Yukos Oil prosecution's disastrous effect on the company's stock.

The days of the profligate "new Russians" of the 1990s, famous for maroon sportcoats, gold chains and crew cuts, are largely over. In their place is a tight-knit aristocracy, more discreet in its appetites and with fortunes hard to imagine. The net worth of the nation's 36 richest men and women, according to Forbes' calculations, is more than $110 billion, or 24 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.

In some cases, the new "new Russians" are the same people who got rich in the shady privatizations of the 1990s. Most have reached their late 30s and 40s, and they've moved their businesses toward legitimate operations.

And after more than a decade of traveling among Paris, London, New York and Moscow, they have begun to expect at home the kind of amenities they have long enjoyed abroad.

Rublyovka, once the exclusive retreat of Stalin, Brezhnev and other Soviet leaders, has become the subject of a best-selling novel, "Casual," a Russian version of "Desperate Housewives." The book is the talk of Moscow because of its portrayal of the privileged lifestyle behind Rublyovka's towering, closely guarded walls.

Lots in the community go for $5 million, and miles of forest are falling to make way for $10 million homes, some with elaborate turrets, Russian Empire facade styling, private chapels and, in one case, a motorboat grotto.

Crocus City, on the north side of Moscow, bills itself as the largest luxury mall in the world -- and that's before construction begins on an expansion that will double the size of the shopping center and include 15 high-rise office buildings, a yacht mooring terminal, helipad, 1,000-room hotel, 216,000-square-foot casino and 16-screen movie theater.

Gucci, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada and Armani are ensconced fewer than 10 miles away, in a cobblestone nook off fashionable Tverskaya Street downtown. They are within walking distance of an array of high-end clubs and restaurants distinguished mainly by the scowling bodyguards standing beside cars with tinted windows outside and the jewel-and-mink-draped beauties inside -- often until 5 or 6 in the morning.

Cafe Galleria, this year's hot spot, requires a weeklong wait for reservations to dine in its sleek, yellow-and-black-columned halls. Even then, it won't admit those who might "spoil the atmosphere," as owner Arkady Novikov puts it.

California rolls -- in a city suddenly mad for sushi, not a single fashionable restaurant can afford to be without it -- go for $17 each. A hunk of creamy burrata cheese with cherry tomatoes costs $24. "Practically every restaurant in Moscow has to have this cheese now. Russians can't live without it," Novikov says.

Novikov owns a network of eateries and has 15 acres of greenhouses outside the city to keep his clients in arugula and wild strawberries throughout the Russian winter.

"People are becoming more sophisticated," he says. "The attitude of people with money had changed toward many things, first of all toward the money itself. Now the money is no longer falling on your head from the sky, like before, and the culture of the people has changed for the better.

"We learned a lot of things from the West, including how to dress, how to behave and how to eat."

Ksenia Sobchak, Russia's 23-year-old answer to Paris Hilton, grew up in far from underprivileged circumstances -- her father was mayor of St. Petersburg -- but insists she's no spoiled debutante.

"I never considered myself to be rich, though I get a real big salary. So how did I get this image of this golden rich girl?" wonders Sobchak, who hosts a reality television show and lives with her millionaire fiance in an apartment on Tverskaya Street.